Meet The Radical Evangelical Army Behind Rick Perry

As Rick Perry tests the waters for a 2012 presidential campaign, he is aligning himself with influential evangelical leaders from the Christian Right and ratcheting up his religious rhetoric.

“I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do,” Perry told the Des Moines Register this weekend. “This is what America needs.”

On August 6, Perry will preside over "The Response," an all-day Christian prayer and fasting rally at Houston's Reliant Stadium. The event is to call on God to guide the United States out of its moral, financial and political morass.

"Right now, America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters," Perry says in his message on the event website. "As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles."

Perry’s advisers say that the idea for The Response predates any thoughts of a White House bid. But it has deepened the Governor's relationship with a rapidly expanding national network of fundamentalist evangelicals that could provide invaluable support to his presidential campaign.

These new evangelicals are part of the New Apostolic Reformation, an increasingly influential American Christian movement whose leaders consider themselves modern-day prophets and apostles. Many of the organizers for The Response are New Apostles, and the event's official endorser list reads like a roster of virtually everyone important to the movement.

In a article for The Texas Observer, reporter Forest Wilder notes that the New Apostolic Reformation has been quietly expanding on the fringes of Christian fundamentalism since the 1990s. The New Apostles' beliefs — which focus on Christian dominion and End Times — are extreme, even for other conservative Christians.

As mainstream evangelical influence wanes, however, the New Apostolic Reformation is gaining broader acceptance among conservative Christians. The Response, whose endorsers also include more mainstream fundamentalists, is evidence of the New Apostles' emerging influence — and of its leaders growing appetite for political power.

Here's what you need to know about the fastest-growing religious movement you've never heard of.